Kevin Costner Reacts to John Dutton’s ‘Yellowstone’ Premiere Fate

[This story contains major spoilers from the Yellowstone season 5B premiere.]

Kevin Costner is weighing in on John Dutton being killed off in the first moments of the return of Yellowstone.

The former star of the Paramount Network hit drama was on The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM when he was asked his reaction to showrunner Taylor Sheridan finishing off the Dutton family patriarch.

“I heard it’s a suicide, so that doesn’t make me want to rush to go see it,” Costner said (video below). Smerconish pointed out that his character didn’t seem like a “suicide kind of guy,” and Costner replied, “Well, they’re pretty smart people. Maybe it’s a red herring. Who knows? They’re very good. And they’ll figure that out.”

Partway through the episode it’s revealed that Dutton’s death was only staged to look like a suicide, and he was actually killed by a hitman hired by Jamie’s (Wes Bentley) girlfriend Sarah (Dawn Olivieri).

At any rate, Costner says he didn’t actually watch the episode himself, he only heard about it from other people. “I didn’t know it was actually airing last night. That’s a swear to God moment. I swear to God. I mean, I’ve been seeing ads with my face all over the place and I’m thinking, ‘Gee, I’m not in that one.’ I’m not in this season. But I’ve been seeing, but I didn’t realize yesterday was the thing. … So no, I found out about it this morning actually.”

The actor was asked yet again about why he left the show amid his contract and schedule dispute with Paramount, where he ultimately felt like he had to prioritize making his Horizon movie saga, and gave a rather detailed reply.

“Yeah, I didn’t really have to leave anything behind,” he said. “There was contractual things that would allow for both [Yellowstone and Horizon] to be done, but because both things were contractual, you had to make room for the other thing. There was room, but it was difficult for [Yellowstone] to keep their schedule. It seemed to be, it was just too difficult for them to do it. There was the time there, what happened, you can deal with it. But no one, I didn’t leave. I didn’t quit the show, okay? I had a contract to do all three [remaining seasons]. And within about an eight-month period, two more different kind of contracts were being negotiated. Not at my request, but at their request to try to do things. I accommodated them on those extra two things that changed, and finally when they wanted to change it a third time. [But] because I had my obligations to do, I had 300 people waiting for me, I couldn’t help them anymore … everybody has to live up to what they say they’re going to do, and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in.”

Costner also waded a bit into politics, standing up for Liz Cheney, who had taken heat from conservatives for standing up to Donald Trump and endorsing Kamala Harris. “I’m very proud of Liz Cheney,” he said. “I found a person who’s completely at odds with one side and willing to stand up. And we should applaud her. We should protect her. This woman should never be threatened, and neither should anybody that stands up in America because we admire the people of the Revolutionary War that stood up. So when someone stands up, even if we don’t, we can’t let her be vulnerable. As a man, I can’t — I won’t allow it. We shouldn’t allow that.”

The premiere, meanwhile, brought in 16.4 million viewers over its multiple airings earning, the largest first-night audience in the show’s history.

Yellowstone airs Sunday nights on Paramount Network. Read THR‘s post-premiere interview with director Christina Voros on how the show handled Costner and his character’s fate.